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The most eagerly anticipated statistic from A-League games has become the crowd figure. Season Six has started with fluctuating news on the attendance front.
Perth Glory’s first game was watched by the biggest crowd (16,019) the Glory have attracted since their – ahem – “Glory days” in the NSL, where they were the prototype for the future of the game at club level.
The Grand Final Replay in Sydney drew an underwhelming crowd of 12,106, but was somewhat ironically, almost exactly the same as the attendance at the NRL grudge match between the Sea Eagles and the Storm on the same night. Gold Coast drew poorly, as did the Fury in Round 2.
The two Melbourne sides have thus far drawn healthy crowds to their new rectangular venue.
So a bit of everything.
But what were we, and more importantly, those running the A-League, expecting? Because starting the A-League season in early August seems to set it up for early failure, from both a crowd and media coverage perspective. Rugby League and AFL are reaching the final rounds of their regular season. Rugby Union is in the middle of the Tri-Nations.
The “footy” landscape is very crowded in August.
In 1989, the NSL gave birth to “summer soccer” and it is one of the few innovations of the moribund former administration that have proved to be enduringly successful.
The season ran from October till May and resulted in better crowds and playing surfaces for a competition that had nothing of the profile of the current A-League. The major reason given for the move was to take the game out of direct competition with the other codes, all of whom enjoyed a higher profile.
While I concede the A-League has always begun in August, I fail to see why. The current season’s home and away rounds will conclude on Sunday February 13th, 2011.
Allowing a month for the top 6 play-offs, this puts the A-League Grand Final at or around the season kick-off for the NRL, and with its expanded competition next year, the AFL as well. In other words, the two most important parts of the season (the beginning and the end) coincide directly with the “business parts” of the two biggest domestic leagues in the country.
It’s a timing mistake the NSL never made.
What’s wrong with an October-to-May competition? Would it negate the potential for overseas clubs to tour as part of a pre-season build-up? I’m not sure it matters. The Everton tour was a sucess in Sydney at least, but the “Festival Of Football” didn’t draw nearly the crowds expected.
One of the world’s most famous clubs, Boca Juniors, came and went almost unnoticed.
Is it a ground access issue? I can’t see how. There is overlap with Rugby League in August and September which affects the Eastern seaboard clubs, and it doesn’t seem to present a problem. Surely it wouldn’t in April and May.
Perhaps it’s time for the A-League to get its timing right.
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